


The psychology of Batman and Bruce Wayne

by Tazmosis



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 01:10:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15984377
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tazmosis/pseuds/Tazmosis





	The psychology of Batman and Bruce Wayne

                This essay will explore the differences, and causes that separate the psyche's of Bruce Wayne and Batman.  Obviously, this is a subjective topic on a wholly fictional  character, but the evaluation and review of such is interesting, in the measurement between what might be commonly believed by the casual observer, the true comic fan and the psychologist.  I claim to be a comic fan and amateur psychologist.

                First, we will look at the life and legacy of Bruce  Wayne.   Orphaned as a boy and left in the care of Alfred Pennyworth, he is portrayed in every medium as a formidable young man with a serious mind.  If you follow Bruce Wayne through the Gotham television series, you see that he's motivated by science and investigation.  This forms the basis of the notion of Batman being the world's greatest detective.  The life of Bruce Wayne is harder to discern.  Seeing the growth of a young man that has been essentially left to his own devices is troubling.  Alfred Pennyworth did the best he was able, and as charged by Thomas and Martha Wayne, but seems to have found that he cannot provide proper parenting to a young man that has the ability to dismiss him as an employee.

 

                Batman was born of Bruce's need to find a way to force order in a failing city.  At the time, and all comic, television and movie mediums agree, that Gotham was a wasteland that was doomed to the criminals.  Batman is the ability lash out at everyone and everything that has ever crossed the youngest Wayne and his attempt to bring order on chaos.  If you understand the loss of the younger Wayne, you understand that he has a need to try to restore what was taken from him.  Batman is that attempt and that is where Bruce Wayne cannot succeed. 

 

                Batman is the personification of Bruce Wayne's need to try to fix Gotham city.  Wayne needs to understand why is parents were taken and he then needs to find a way to stop that from perpetuating.  In the early years of his life, Thomas Wayne was a doctor and as such, shared his compassion and philanthropy with his son, Batman is a skewed vision of him fulfilling his father's teaching.

 

                They psyche of Bruce Wayne is relatively simple, he was crippled by tragedy by watching his parents die.  In the following years, instead of succumbing to depression, he turned his inner turmoil into focused anger at the criminal element of Gotham, thus the adamantine will of Batman.  In the medium of the 1960's television show, this isn't addressed.  This aspect isn't actually addressed by the general media until the Michael Keaton adaptation of Batman, that we see where the trauma is laid on the boy.  The 1990 to 2000 films do, however, seek to whitewash Bruce Wayne as a benevolent character working to restore justice for the sake of doing the right thing.  This is, truly,  not the case.  The whitewash of a Lawful good Batman, only matches the narrative of the television show of the late 1960's.  The lawful neutral mode is considered by the 1989 film adaption, but the portrayal, by Michael Keaton, suggests that Bruce Wayne is a haunted figure, but not exactly the driven force that is exemplified by some comics, specifically, the Injustice, Gods Among Us comics string.  The subsequent performance by  Val Kilmer gets closer to the driving efforts, the George Clooney performances should be discarded as laughable, while the Christian Bale roles, can be reviewed for clues and hints.  We'll get to Ben Affleck performances later.

 

                Michael Keaton, Arguably the best acted portrayal of Batman.  He presents as a flawed introvert that openly states that he doesn't always understand his need to be Batman. 

                Val Kilmer, this role tried, and failed, to understand Batman.  This tried to paint Batman as a force for good and justice.  Not the case.  Robin was a poor affectation that will not be addressed here.

 

                George Clooney,  This is a cartoon homage that should be dismissed out of hand as a throwback to a 1960's campy Batman.  In this role, this portrayal does well, but in no other application.

 

                Kevin Conroy, Batman the Animated Series.  A very good adaption to what is finally shown as not a hero, but an antihero.  In the Animated Series, Batman is shown to be a driven personality that wasn't on display before.  Several instances, however, show Batman to be a compassionate being, whether it be the Royal Flush gang or Harley Quinn, this iteration still has an emotional heart.  This can also be seen in the various instances where Bruce Wayne is observed in various social settings and relationships, most of which Batman is truly not capable of sustaining.

 

                Christian Bale delivered an excellent portrayal of the Gotham Knight with an updated landscape and review of the criminal elements of the city.  He is shown to be a truly driven character that goes to great lengths, sacrificing his body and the goals of Bruce Wayne to achieve the Batman ends.  The emotionally healthy side of Batman, displayed in The Dark Knight and Dark Knight Rises, are however out of place.  In the scene that shows Batman, without mask in the penthouse telling Alfred that Rachael Daws would be in his life, suggests that  Bruce Wayne could give up the Batman persona.   At the end of Dark Knight rises, Wayne is shown with Selina Kyle in what appears to be a reasonable relationship.

 

                Ben Affleck, Batman vs Superman & Justice league.  This is a truer display of the Bat mind and emotional state.  I would argue that with the death of his parents and with no substantial and controlling parent, the emotional growth of the child stunted to where logic and  right and wrong are absolute, without interpretive emotions.  This can be seen expressly in the exchange between Bruce and Alfred where the statement is made that "The world only makes sense when you force it to.".  This is also tempered with the jaded experiences of an older Batman.

 

                In almost all iterations, Batman is 34 years old, old enough to be a parent, but not so old to have slowed down by aging.  In the Batman Vs Superman version we see that the Jason Todd version of Robin has come and gone and the reference to clowns is an indicator that Bruce Wayne is moving toward the Batman Beyond phase of the character, but several years removed.

 

                Batman Beyond, Terry McGuiness.  This is an animated series that is the next generation of the Gotham Knight.  Bruce Wayne appears to be in his 70's and is no longer physically able to meet the demands of the Batman persona.  Through plot schema, he's turned over the Batman mantle to a young man, but insists on remaining in an active advisory role, filling his need to stay involved, and somewhat in charge of the situations as well as to ensure that the new Knight continues his work as he would see it through.  In this relationship and depiction, you can see that Bruce Wayne is an angry old man that has lived his life alone.  Alfred Pennyworth has departed, presumably deceased and he has no other companion beyond an faithful dog.  The apparent gap in his emotional life is a clear indicator that he could never surrender the mantle of Batman and transition to a more normal existence adding family to his life.

 

                In all of these Bruce Wayne portrayals, we see a common thread, rule of law.  One could  argue that Batman is a revenge driven creature that uses rule of law as a limiter. I would also argue that Batman is the icon of the iron willed being.  He has the conviction of not killing anyone and that defending general public is tantamount.  These however are not born out of benevolence, but rather that he will do all that he can, single mindedly so to crush the environment that a allowed his parents killers to develop, while all the while vowing he will not become the killer.

 

                In only one way can we see that Batman has the capacity to have an ongoing, familial relationship and this is through a tiny handful.  Firstly, Alfred Pennyworth, his surrogate father.  Alfred did the best he was able, but as previously stated, he knew that he could be set aside at will,  As did happen in The Dark Knight rises.  Talia Al Ghul, the mother to his son Damien, and daughter Athanasia, found only in the Injustice Gods Among us Story line.  This relationship is tenuous, filled with passion,  that might have overcome the drive to be Batman, but failed due to the basic needs of both characters and is seen as a doomed encounter.  Catwoman, Selina Kyle, is an on and off love interest for Batman, but not for Bruce Wayne.  She is a criminal with a code of honor.  In this she gains Batman's respect but he cannot reconcile her as a long term confidant.  In some timelines, Catwoman, is the mother to Helena Kyle who becomes huntress, his estranged daughter.

 

                The other relationships, he manages to maintain are the ones with the various Robin's and Batgirl, but even most these are kept at somewhat of a distance.  Because of his primary drive superseding everything else, his relationships with these figures are at best comradeship.  Dick Grayson proved to be his 'first son' but in that instance, he's a father that doesn't know how to connect to his son on an emotional level, even if he were capable of doing so.  This is the same instance with Damian Wayne, his biological son, but a difference in that Damien need a limiting figure to reign in his aggressiveness.  Jason Todd, Tim Drake and Barbara Gordon are likely seen as trusted allies, but not true confidants, once again displaying Batman's cavernous trust issues.

 

                No analysis would be complete without reviewing the relationship between Batman and the Joker.  This is an enormous subtopic, but this will be succinct.  It's been argued that they form a symbiotic relationship where one could not exist without the other.  This truly not the case.  The Joker can be viewed as the embodiment of chaos and Batman being a force for order.  While they are polar opposites, they are not mutually dependent.  The order Batman seeks to impose does not rely on The Joker to exist, and likewise.  Batman refuses to kill the Joker because that  is a line that, once he crosses, he will continue to do so.  In an enigmatic way, Batman is functioning on a level of hope in trying to find a way to redeem his arch-nemesis, tapping is the residual humanity of Bruce Wayne.

 

                In summation of this topic, the disparity of Bruce Wayne and Batman are extreme, with the Bruce Wayne persona, being a masked used by an entity that is driven by anger and moral focus to enforce through fear, what the justice cannot, through presence and community outreach.  Batman is the true face of this being with competing presences in reality and Bruce Wayne being a disguise used to navigate the world for Batman's purposes.


End file.
